We’re back! It’s been a busy 2 weeks of job applications, job rejections, vivid dreams, traveling all around the city, crafternoons, and hanging out with our favorite people. Catja even reunited with 4 (!!!) lovely friends from New London who all ended up in London in March. Read along for an eclectic mix of adventures, and send us Vitamin D vibes to make it to spring! We’re almost there!
Monday 3/4
C: I set off in the morning to Croydon, a place with a less than ideal reputation mostly from people who have never even been there. But nonetheless, it is a place I have always wanted to see for myself, even more so because my dear dance friend Lucy lives there (hi girl, I know you’re reading this <3). Lucy has graciously offered her home as a location for our Mediated Choreography film final project, so Steffi, Mel, and I headed to her house for some pre-vis, location scouting, and pizza (with pineapple despite Lucy’s mum’s dismay).
Later, I took several buses and trains back to uni and spent nearly three hours in the library editing our music and soundscore. Our film is a voyeuristic, surrealist, anxiety-filled movement exploration, so I spliced together music and sound effects together to achieve that effect. I’m not super skilled with sound editing, but it is a lot of fun! I had rehearsal until 8:30 then took the train home for a late, ravenous dinner.
Z: After procrastinating returning a book to the UCL library for basically three months, I decided that I would motivate myself by running to school. So, I set off running the 9.99 kilometers from our house to Bloomsbury. I ran through Regents Park, stopping briefly to snap a picture on Primrose Hill of the first sunny day in a while, before emerging into the bustling streets of central. I made it to the library, returned my book, and checked my phone to see that I had annoyingly run only 9.99 k, instead of 10 (face palm).
Before heading back home on the tube, Catja asked me to pick up some tequila, so I made my way to Tesco. Having never purchased alcohol before, I aimlessly wandered the aisles confused what tequila looked like in this country. I ended up at three shops before giving up and returning home without tequila (sorry Catja, I am too much of an awkward human to ask someone to help me find tequila). I have no idea what I did for the remainder of the day, which will be a theme in this post, but it was probably some combination of school work and randomly applying to jobs.
P.S. - Dear Mr. Dubelier, Zoe was just being a very kind friend and is in no way interested in drinking said tequila. She finds the smell of vodka revolting enough, and that one drop of whiskey she tasted was enough for the rest of her life! -Catja
Tuesday 3/5
It was a beautiful sunny day, so we decided to get out of the house and do some exploring. We were going to see the infamous dinosaur sculptures in Crystal Palace Park, but we realized it was 90 minutes away with little else to do in the area. The museums were closed, and the markets only open on Saturdays. So instead, we wandered around West Hampstead, popped into some charity shops, and picnicked on a hill in Hampstead Heath. In the last charity shop we went into, the sales lady very loudly announced that she was an anti-vaxxer, so we very swiftly exited the shop. It was a very chill and uneventful day. We have no recollection of what we did after.
Wednesday 3/6
C: After my morning Performance of Heritage lecture, I took the train to Canary Wharf to support my Fulbright friend, Patricia, in her UCL Pitch Competition. She founded unithrifts, a sustainable platform specifically for colleges and universities to buy and sell used products – similar to Depop, Facebook Marketplace, and Vinted but with more features for tracking zero-waste levels among schools.
The event was hosted on the 50th floor of One Canada Square, a huge glass building in the finance district of London. Walking around Canary Wharf is surreal. It feels like an American city, only cleaner. It is primarily a corporate district, with not many people living on the Isle of Dogs, so it has a very different feel to the bustling, historic central London.
Patricia was fantastic, and I learned a lot listening to all of the sustainability-focused business pitches! Fellow Fulbrighters Juan and Selina also attended, and we took a photo together afterwards. The views outside the floor to ceiling windows were stunning. I could really see how much the Thames bends and winds around the city, and I could have stared outside for hours.
Z: Here we are again, I have no memory of the day. Apparently I ran…good for me. Other than that it is safe to assume that I applied to jobs and probably did some sort of craft. Woohoo!
Thursday 3/7
After a productive morning of applying to jobs and doing dissertation research at home, Zoe knocked on Catja’s door so she could proofread a cover letter. While Catja made a few edits, Zoe looked around and said, “Why don’t you move your dresser across the room so you can actually open your drawers?” Catja being Catja had put her fold-out desk in front of the window perpendicular to her dresser. It was supposed to be a temporary position, but Catja, like a plant, realized that she actually likes getting sunlight when working from home.
So, for the next two hours, Zoe shared all of her organizational wisdom with a wide-eyed Catja. It was like having a personal Marie Kondo! Catja never knew there were so many ways to fold clothes efficiently. File folds? Who knew! Zoe also gently forced Catja to sort through her crafting materials to get rid of things she would likely never use. Catja is a mild hoarder, and she will keep things like two random screws, a single blank sheet of paper, and tiny wooden slats from stretched canvases just in case they come in handy. Sometimes, they do! But not often enough for Zoe to allow her to keep them.
After Catja’s room was left sparkling, we prepared to host a movie night. We rearranged the couches and prepared popcorn, brownies, and tea for everyone. Zoe discovered that adding an entire chocolate bar to brownies results in a very gooey, unstable form, but they were still delicious. Ethan came over from work, then he and Hebe joined us in the living room to watch the classic 10 Things I Hate About You. Ethan was inspired by the father’s parenting strategies, and Hebe realized that Mandella and Michael’s relationship was quite reminiscent of her own with Luke, much to Ethan’s amusement.
Friday 3/8
Z: I spent the morning applying to jobs and doing god knows what else before the electrician finally came at 3pm. Ooo I actually remember, that I spent the morning hanging up our fun new hallway art, which is a series of Pantone paint swatches inspired by our favorite London things. The two electricians were there to check that all our outlets were working and such. As they checked, we chatted for a bit as they asked Catja and me questions about our Pantone colors and living in Willesden. The older man pointed out that my take on the Metropolitan Line was not quite correct (kinda rude if you ask me) and chuckled at out “not a Republican mug” shade of grey. We all stood in the hallway as the younger man checked the hallway light and laughed when our neighbors began screaming at their children (a normal noise in our house now).
C: After that eventful afternoon, I set off to Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance to meet up with Juan and watch the student production. It was so inspiring to see another school of brilliant dancers! Juan showed me around the beautiful facilities. My jaw dropped looking through all 14 studios. I also reunited with Kaya, a fellow Conn dance major who was a senior when I was a first year! We danced together until COVID hit in February 2020, and we hadn’t seen each other since. It was a very sweet reunion, and she dances even more beautifully than I remembered.
Saturday 3/9
Z: With bagels on the brain, Catja and I woke up early to head over to another bagel shop in St John’s Wood called Panzer’s. We decided to walk, as it was a nice day, and chatted while enjoying the sunny weather. We wandered about Panzer’s which is a little grocery store with American treats shipped from across the pond in addition to bagels. The store was full of Americans, so clearly we have found the expats’ stomping ground.
We took our bagels and chive cream cheese to go and headed to nearby Primrose Hill to enjoy them with a view of the city before heading back home for the afternoon.
C: After 5 miles of walking around, I took the train to Pineapple Dance Studios to meet Juan for a last-minute ballet class. I haven’t taken a ballet class since my other last-minute class with Viggo and Kasey in December at Washington Ballet, and I was feeling nervous, but it ended up being a lot of fun! An older lady with very cool, white pixie-cut hair complimented me on my technique and asked where I trained. I’m still on my ballet healing journey, so this was a big confidence boost of kindness.
Later, after a hot shower, Zoe found me sprawled in bed at 5pm, exhausted from the day’s activities. Luckily, she pried me out of bed enough to eat dinner and start sketching our latest craft: a dramatic portrait of Napoleon staring out at the sublime view, inspired by “Wanderer Above Sea Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich (shout out to Zoe’s 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Weidenfeld, who would not stop talking about this “sublime” painting when teaching Frankenstein) and Ethan’s enthusiasm for his favorite man from last weekend.
Sunday 3/10
C: After a very rainy Sunday shop at Lidl, we warmed up with tea, cookies, and a spectacular Spurs game, smashing Aston Villa 4-0. Riding that high, I took the train for another Sunday surprise: meeting ANOTHER Conn dancer, Genevieve, who was in London for just 12 hours before flying back to the States. Genevieve was a year above me, and we danced together several times over the years. We had a lovely catch up while wandering around Buckingham and Hyde Park.
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